Families still in limbo nine months after tragic Osoyoos boating accident
Credit to Author: Denise Ryan| Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2020 01:11:29 +0000
To the rest of the world he was Nick, but to Jill Maddigan he was, and always will be Nicholas. For eight months now, Maddigan has been waiting for answers on what happened on the evening her son, Nicholas Trask, 36, and his best friend Ryan Ellison, 35, were killed when a fishing boat struck the boat they were in on Osoyoos Lake.
Maddigan doesn’t want to pester Osoyoos RCMP, but she says the long delay and the lack of any information on the investigation is contributing to the anguish the family feels.
“We are living in agony, we can’t move forward or backward,” said Maddigan.
June 8, 2019 was a balmy evening in Osoyoos. Trask, his wife Melissa and their two sons Vincent, 9, and Evan, 7, had gone for a weekend camping trip. They also wanted to hang out with Trask’s buddy Ellison — the duo had grown close after Ellison’s brother Clayton died in an ATV accident in Hope in 2013.
A 2017 photo of Jill Maddigan with her son Nicholas Trask, who was tragically killed in a boating accident on Osoyoos Lake on June 8, 2019.
Trask, an experienced and careful boater who was president of the Fraser Valley Drag Boat Association, had gone out on the lake with Ellison to do some late afternoon fishing before dinner.
“They never came back,” said Maddigan.
At exactly 7:14 p.m., a fishing boat collided with the boat carrying Ellison and Trask. Ellison and Trask were killed instantly. Both boats sank, and three survivors from the other boat were transported to hospital with minor injuries. Although local surveillance cameras captured video of the crash, there has been no update on the cause of the fatal accident.
“We are unable to get one piece of information concerning the accident or the occupants of the other boat,” said Maddigan.
Maddigan was in Newfoundland visiting her daughter when she got the call to tell her there had been an accident and that Nicholas and Ryan were missing and presumed dead.
“We packed up and left, his sister and her two little children and me and flew across Canada, to Kelowna and then we had to rent a car and drive to Osoyoos. It was the worst journey of my life,” said Maddigan.
The men’s bodies were recovered a day after the accident from 280 feet of water on Osoyoos lake. Friends of Trask that had rushed to the lake when they heard Trask was missing identified the bodies. They also observed beer cans floating in the water on the scene, said Maddigan.
“A toxicology report was done on Nicholas and Ryan. We received that report within four months. It was clean as a whistle. My son didn’t drink and Ryan didn’t drink,” said Maddigan. “They told us at the time they weren’t sure if toxicology tests were done on the occupants of the other boat.”
Maddigan said their family’s lives have been turned upside down and they are desperate for information, and closure.
“My boy just went fishing and he never came home. I need to know what happened.”